Borough of Manhattan Community College | City University of New York

CRJ 204-1900: Criminal Justice and the Urban Community | Spring 2020 | Professor Ronda

 RESEARCH PROJECT ON NEIGHBORHOODS, CRIME, AND JUSTICE ASSIGNMENT

This assignment is worth up to 350 points total.

This semester we are learning to gather, evaluate, interpret, and analyze empirical data (or evidence) about crime, criminal justice, and inequality in the urban neighborhoods of New York City. Empirical data describes information that people collect using methods that are more systematic than the way we usually gather information. Survey research, systematic observation, and formal interviews are all ways to gather empirical data.

This assignment asks you to compare empirical data (evidence) from a variety of sources about a neighborhood of your choice in New York City in a series of steps throughout the semester. You will select a neighborhood on which you will focus, and you will become an expert in empirical data about the area, including statistics on crime, housing, the economy, and social characteristics. You will research available sources of information about the history of the neighborhood you selected.

The goal of all of these assignments is to learn the basics of gathering empirical data in urban neighborhoods; to gain practice in understanding and interpreting statistics about crime and urban neighborhoods; and to consider the relationship between history, policy, and the realities of life in the City.

You will complete steps in a process designed to build toward your final paper, as follows:

FORMAT FOR FINAL PAPER

The final paper must be typed, double-spaced, and no less than five, but no more than seven pages, not including any cover page, references, photos, tables, and figures.  Your final paper must include at least five sources, including for the data you are gathering (three sources), the Mears article on disparities, and one Wikipedia or similar page on the neighborhood itself (details below). Your paper must use a citation style consistently and correctly. It must also be spell-checked and edited to earn full points. Do not plagiarize!

INSTRUCTIONS FOR DRAFT AND FINAL PAPER (use the headings below in your paper)

For the draft, put together the previous assignments, and draft a conclusion. For the final, polish the draft with my feedback.

1. Introduction and history of the neighborhood (1/2 – 1 page)
   1. Briefly explain the neighborhood you selected, including the borough, and offer some summary of the conclusions you will share in the paper about the area, compared to NYC as a whole. In the introduction, be sure to return to our definition of disparities (the Mears article), which has guided our work this semester, and note which kinds of disparities seem to matter most for the area you selected. Here you should also include a little detail from Wikipedia or a similar source giving a brief summary of your chosen neighborhood (use Assignment 3a).
2. Neighborhood statistics summary and comparisons to NYC overall (2-3 pages)
   1. Here include the data from assignment 1. Write these data up into a narrative form; that is, take the numbers and weave them into sentences (Use Assignment 3b). You may decide to include tables, but you still need narrative to describe those tables. Select at least three points that you think are important to the area, and to how people experience life in the neighborhood. Think about the issue of disparities, as well as the things we know are problematic in neighborhoods in terms of negative outcomes for residents, considering adults, senior citizens, and children. Compare your Community Board statistics from assignment 1 to the borough and to NYC as a whole on the three points that you chose to focus on. Data are here: http://furmancenter.org/research/sonychan
3. Community Board needs, Health, Incarceration, and Collective Efficacy (2 pages) (Use Assignment 2)
   1. Next, you must include the top three pressing issues from Statement of Community District Needs for the area you selected. Do they make sense given what you have learned about the area? Use the FY 2020 statement. Data are here: https://communityprofiles.planning.nyc.gov/
   2. Next, review the Community Health Profile 2018 (must be 2018!) for your area, focusing on pages 6-8 (data here: http://a816-dohbesp.nyc.gov/IndicatorPublic/QuickView.aspx). The information that you must include: gentrification, violence, incarceration, and helpful neighbors.
4. Conclusions (1/2 – 1 page)
   1. Conclude with highlights of the most positive things about the area (including people, including yourself and those you know). Neighborhoods can offer barriers as well as strengths, so consider both of these in your conclusion. Also, review any of the most important points you found in your research in your conclusions. Justice is ultimately concerned with fairness, and we have seen that criminal justice falls short on this. Social Justice is a philosophy that argues that we should have a fair distribution of opportunities, wealth, and privileges in our society. You can decide whether we are achieving that goal given the conclusions that you have drawn about your neighborhood.

 Works Cited (MLA) or References (APA)

I am sharing the Works Cited here for the data to include; note that these are in MLA format, so you will have to revise them if you use APA format. In addition, you will have to change the first two to the name of your area, and the correct URL and accessed date.  Works Cited or References MUST BE IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER.

Works Cited

“Astoria, Queens.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 11 Apr. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astoria, Queens.

Community District Profiles: Queens Community District 1. New York City Planning, https://communityprofiles.planning.nyc.gov/queens/1. Accessed October 15, 2019.

Community Health Profiles 2018: Long Island City and Astoria. New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, 2018, https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/data/2018chp-qn1.pdf. Accessed October 15, 2019.

Mears, Daniel P., Joshua C. Cochran, and Andrea M. Lindsey. “Offending and racial and ethnic disparities in criminal justice: A conceptual framework for guiding theory and research and informing policy.” Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 32.1 (2016): 78-103.

New York University Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy (NYU Furman Center). 2018. State of New York City’s Housing & Neighborhoods—2017 Report. New York: New York University Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy.